Willie Doherty has been a pioneering figure in contemporary art film and photography for four decades. Exploring the relationship between landscape and memory, Doherty responds to mysterious isolated settings that conceal a troubled past. Though his primary geographic reference is Northern Ireland, and especially his native Derry – a city divided along sectarian lines during the ‘Troubles’, Doherty has trained his lens on sites of contested history elsewhere in the world, including Granada, Pennsylvania and the US/Mexico border. Studying these terrains in forensic detail, Doherty’s video and photo works reveal the impossibility of objectivity and historical truth, often using diptychs to set contradictory points of view against each other. His videos unfold slowly, sometimes combining material evidence with haunting fictional monologues that speak of shame, deception, brutality and its aftermath, as if leaking the stories contained within the landscape. Assessing how these sites appear to us now, Doherty uses powerful language and disorientating imagery to reflect on how we approach histories of trauma.
Willie Doherty lives and works in Donegal.
Willie Doherty
Wrong Place, 2023
Pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315gsm, edition of 3
109 x 135.5 cm / 42.9 x 53.3 in framed
Willie Doherty
Shadows, 2023
Pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315gsm, edition of 3
109 x 135.5 cm / 42.9 x 53.3 in framed
Willie Doherty
Imagined, 2023
Pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315gsm, edition of 3
109 x 135.5 cm / 42.9 x 53.3 in framed
Willie Doherty
Winter Landscape, 2022
Pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315gsm., edition 1 of 3
109 x 135 cm / 42.9 x 53.1 in framed
Willie Doherty
Midnight, 2022
diptych, Pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315gsm., edition 1 of 3
63 x 78.2 cm / 24.8 x 30.8 in framed each
Willie Doherty
Lost Crossing, 2022
Pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315gsm., edition 1 of 3
109 x 135 cm / 42.9 x 53.1 in framed
Willie Doherty
Dreams of Security, Dreams of Infiltration, 2018
diptych, framed pigment print mounted on Dibond, edition of 3
107.5 x 160.5 cm / 42.3 x 63.2 in each, framed
Willie Doherty
Ashen, Restless, 2018
quadriptych, framed pigment print mounted on Dibond, edition of 3
68 x 101.1 x 3.5 cm / 26.8 x 39.8 x 1.4 in each, framed
Collection of British Government Art Collection
Willie Doherty
Ghost Walk III, 2016
pigment print mounted on aluminium, edition of 3
109 x 162.5 x 5 cm / 42.9 x 64 x 2 in framed
Collection of British Government Art Collection
Willie Doherty
Dreams of Renewal, Dreams of Annihilation, 2017
triptych, framed pigment prints mounted on Dibond, edition of 3
2 prints each: 108.6 x 162 cm / 42.7 x 63.7 in each
1 print: 68.6 x 102.2 cm / 27 x 40.2 in
Willie Doherty
ENDLESS, 2020
single screen video installation, 4K Video, black and white, stereo sound, edition of 3
duration: 13 minutes
Willie Doherty
ENDLESS I, 2020
diptych, pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm, 100% Cotton, white, acid free, edition of 3
52 x 68.6 x 3 cm / 20.5 x 27 x 1.2 in each, framed
Willie Doherty
REMAINS, 2013
high-definition video, colour and sound
duration: 15 minutes
Collection of De Pont Museum, Tilburg; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Harvard Art Museums
Willie Doherty
Secretion, 2012
video installation, colour and sound, edition of 3
duration: 20 minutes
Collection of Sammlung Goetz, Munich and Neue Galerie, Kassel
Willie Doherty
TO THE BORDER
A Fork In The Road
The place where Ciaran Doherty was executed in February 2010, accused of being a British informer, he was abducted two hours before his body was dumped at the side of the road. 1986 - 2012
black & white fibre photograph mounted on aluminum, edition of 3
122 x 183 cm / 48 x 72 in
Collection of Huis Marseille, Amsterdam and Arts Council, Northern Ireland
Willie Doherty
FLYOVER
Ghost Walk, 1985 - 2012
black and white fibre photograph mounted on aluminum, edition of 3
122 x 183 cm / 48 x 72 in
Willie Doherty
Re-run, 2002
double screen video projection installation, colourcolour
duration: 30 minutes
Collection of TATE, London
Willie Doherty
The Only Good One is a Dead One, 1993
double screen video projection installation, colour
Collection of Irish Museum of Modern Art
Willie Doherty
Remote Control, 1992
black and white photograph with text mounted on aluminium, edition of 3
121.9 x 182.9 cm / 48 x 72 in
Collection of TATE, London
Willie Doherty
Shifting Ground (The Walls, Derry), 1991
black and white photograph with text mounted on aluminium, edition of 3
121.9 x 182.9 cm / 48 x 72 in
Willie Doherty
Native Disorders I, 1991
c-type photograph with text mounted on masonite, edition of 3
114.3 x 152.4 cm / 45 x 60 in
Re-Run, 2003
Turner Prize, TATE
Willie Doherty has exhibited in many of the world’s leading museums, including the CAM Gulbenkian, Lisbon; De Pont Museum, Tilburg; SMK, Copenhagen; Fruitmarket, Edinburgh; Tate, London; Dallas Museum of Art; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Neue Galerie, Kassel; Kunsthalle Bern; Kunstverein München; Kunstverein Hamburg and the Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris. Recent solo exhibitions include Matts Gallery, London; Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, Ireland (both 2024); Fondazione Modena Arti Visive, Modena, Italy (2020) travelling to Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland (2021); a billboard project in conjunction with Void, Derry (2021); Art Sonje Center, Seoul (2017) and Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2016). Doherty was nominated twice for the Turner Prize and has participated in major international exhibitions including Documenta, Manifesta, the Carnegie International, FRONT International Cleveland Triennial and the Venice, São Paulo and Istanbul biennales.
Documenta 13, 2012
Willie Doherty
WHERE/DOVE,2021
Fondazione Modena Arti Visive, 2021,
Photo: Rolando Paolo Guerzoni
Willie Doherty
WHERE, 2021
Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Willie Doherty
Home, 2016
Villa Merkel, Germany
Willie Dohery
Again and Again, 2015
Fundaçao Calouste Gulbenkian, CAM, Lisbon
Willie Doherty
UNSEEN, 2014
Museum De Pont, Tilburg
Willie Doherty
Disturbance, 2011
Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne / Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin
Willie Doherty
Requisite Distance, 2009
Dallas Museum of Art, USA
Willie Doherty
Buried, 2009
Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh
Willie Doherty and Ailbhe Ní Bhriain are exhibited as part of SUSPENSE at The Ulster Museum's collection. SUSPENSE presents highlights from the museum's collection, one of the most important collections of twentieth-century and contemporary art in the UK and Ireland.
Remnant investigates the interconnectedness of place, time, and memory.
Willie Doherty is in Art in Democracy, a new exhibition at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
Join Willie Doherty on a walkthrough of his current exhibition IS AND IS NOT with Declan Long, critic, lecturer and author of Ghost-haunted land: Contemporary art and Post-Troubles Northern Ireland. An open, conversational format reflecting on this new series of black and white photographs and the broader concerns of Doherty’s practice.
Works by Gerard Byrne, Willie Doherty & Paul Seawright are included in PhotoIreland 2022, the biggest ever edition of the annual photography exhibition.
Willie Doherty, Where comes from Fondazione Modena Arti Visive to Ulster Museum supported by the British Council, as part of the “Being Present” UK/Italy Season 2020. The exhibition offers an overview of Doherty’s career through photographic and video works focused on the theme of borders, from the works of the 90s to a new video installation commissioned for the occasion. The exhibition is curated by Daniele De Luigi and Anne Stewart.
